HAPPY NEW YEAR, BUTT-MONGERS!

So it has become my tradition that on the first day of the new year, I dedicate my blog post to reviewing the previous year’s walking mileage. And this one is particularly special to me, because I was able to set a new personal record for the number of miles walked in a year—a personal record that surpassed my previous personal record by more than 1,300 miles.

So let’s do it! Here are my walking stats for January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017.

• Total number of walks: 314
• Total mileage: 5,100
• Total number of steps: 11,130,160
• Total calories burned: 367,250
• Total walking time (minutes): 71,361.10 [that’s about 49.56 days]
• Average speed (mph) per walk: 4.26

5,100 miles is approximately the (great circle) distance between Kyoto, Japan and Seattle, WA, or between Athens, Greece, and Cape Town, South Africa.

That’s a serious distance, yo. That’s across the Pacific Ocean.

My goal was to walk 5,000 miles last year, and I managed to surpass that by 100 miles. That’s pretty cool.

I mean, this goal took some serious commitment. It might not seem like it was that big of a deal, but it really did take a lot of time, energy, pain, and persistence.

(Mostly pain.)

I walked 15+ miles in temperatures as low as -18 ℉ and as high as 96 ℉ (and shorter distances in temperatures as low as -29 ℉). I walked during serious wind. Serious snow. Serious rain. I walked when there were air quality warnings out because of the smoke during the summer. I walked when I really didn’t feel like it and would have much preferred staying home and being a lazy fart. I turned my feet into angry, gross callouses. Nearly every part of my body was in pain at some point or another due to all the walking. I was getting up at 4 AM to go on those longer 30-mile walks in the summer. Anyone who knows me knows that 4 AM is a bed time, not a “get up” time. I walked a maximum of 50 miles in one day in July. There were a good number of days where I spent more time walking than I did sleeping.

I really want to put this in perspective, because it was a lot of walking. If I had divided that 5,100 miles into daily walks, I would have had to walk 13.97 miles a day. Every single day. I obviously didn’t do that, but that’s what it breaks down to.

Same thing with the time commitment. I spent 49.56 days walking. That’s 49.56 24-hour periods. That’s a lot of time. 71,361.10 minutes is about 1,189.35 hours. Again, if I were to divide that equally across the 365 days of the year, that would be a time commitment of 3.26 hours a day. Every single day. That’s a big-ass time commitment. You can do a lot of things in 3.26 hours.

I’m sorry. I hope I don’t sound like I’m bragging, because I don’t want to brag. This was just a really big deal for me. You don’t spend 49.56 days doing something if it’s not a big deal for you.

Here’s the mileage breakdown by month and by day of the week.

July was serious business.

One other thing I wanted to do: so as I’m sure you’re all aware because I won’t shut up about it, I mangled my quad (?) back in August while walking. I never went to the doctor because doctors are scary, so I actually don’t know what I did to it. But based on the amount of pain and how long it’s still taking to heal*, I’m just going to say that I tore the muscle.

But anyway, this really slowed down my walking speed (and still is, unfortunately). I was consistently around the 4.8, 4.9 MPH range in July and early August before I got hurt. I wanted to see how visible this injury was if I were to plot my MPH by walking date. So I did. Can you guess where the injury happened?

Haha, wow. That’s super obvious (and super depressing). The speed appears to be gradually increasing again, but it’s taking way longer than I’d like to do so. I really hope I’ll be able to get back to my 4.9 MPH pace.

Anyway. I promised Nate and my mom that I wouldn’t try to beat this record of 5,100 miles for 2018 (I’ll also be teaching two classes this first semester, one of which is going to take a lot of prep since I’ve never taught it before), so I doubt I’ll even get close to that mileage again.

But I’m proud of the 5,100. It’s nice to know that I can do it.

*The healing process probably would have been faster if I hadn’t taken two days off after the injury and then went right back to daily 15-mile walks, but that’s how I roll.